It may not have mattered in the South Puget Sound League standings, but Thursday's volleyball match between Thomas Jefferson and Todd Beamer was a crosstown battle and brought out plenty of action.

The match lasted a full five games with the visiting Titans of Beamer posting an eventual 25-22, 25-15, 19-25, 19-25, 15-8 over the Raiders.

Strangely enough, the match left the Todd Beamer team down and the TJ team up.

"We're a better team than that," said Titans head coach Jason Boyd of his team's struggle to beat the Raiders. "We didn't pass very well tonight. But TJ is scrappy. They dig a lot of balls."

"We did make a comeback," said Raiders head coach Megan Melver. "We finally started serving tough and got a bit of momentum and started talking."

Both coaches have to deal with a common malady this year -- youth.

"We're a really young team," Melver said. "We graduated six seniors from last year and seven girls are brand new to the varsity level. So we're young and we're green and have a lot of hard work ahead."

"I have a young team and a lot of young kids stepped up," Boyd said.

Beamer ran its record to 3-1 to show for its first few non-divisional games as the Raiders dropped to 1-2.

Both teams open SPSL action Wednesday, Sept. 22 with TJ playing Kent-Meridian opener in its North Division opener and Beamer visiting Puyallup in the South Division.

"So hopefully we'll get better," said Boyd of what awaits.

All varsity matches are scheduled for 7:15 p.m., depending on the length of the junior varsity match ahead of them.

Thursday's varsity action was only a few minutes late, and Beamer was ready to go in the opening game.

The Titans posted a 25-22 victory, although it was tied as late as 18-18 and was tied seven times before that. Beamer held only a 21-20 lead at one point towards the end, but a net call against the Raiders upped the margin to 22-20.

Beamer's Bekkah Young then blocked a shot into the Raiders' half of the court to make it 23-20, before TJ's Beauty Jackson scored a hit in the middle and off a Titans' player to make it 23-21. Beamer had a shot slice in to make it 24-21 and shot by Jackson slipped over the net to bring TJ within 24-22. But the Raiders hit the net to hand the win to the Titans, 25-22.

Beamer jumped out to an 8-3 advantage in the second game and stayed in control.

The Titans led, 12-4, 14-5 and 17-7 before coming away with a 25-15 win. Megan Levesque of the Raiders hit the net for Beamer's final point.

TJ then posted back-to-back 25-19 win in games three and four.

The Raiders took an early 6-0 lead and still had convincing control at 7-2, 8-3, 10-4, 12-5 and 17-7 in the fourth game. That set the stage for a fifth and deciding game that would go to the first team to get to 15.

This time Beamer led, 3-0 and 4-1 before coasting to the 15-8 victory. It ended with a TJ serve out of bounds.

The victorious Titans received 13 kills and 10 digs from Lexie Jones, 25 assists from Sophie Miller and 25 digs from freshman Allya Ranis. Young contributed five kills and four blocks and Megan Stumpf scored six blocks.

Allie Crowe of the Raiders amassed 28 assists, two blocks, eight digs, five aces and three kills and Andrina Tanielu drove in 16 kills to go with four digs and two aces. Sister Leone Tanielu had 12 digs and Jackson had five kills, one dig and five blocks.